Dreamland Review Archive

JIHAD (T)

JIHAD

08_Umm_Waraqah

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

Your cover has potential- my favourite part is the font. But I don't think you should use the same font for the subtitle and author's name, because it's very difficult to read. The picture you used is interesting, but it's very dark. Since Wattpad is such a scary place, covers like this get lost in it. I'd recommend redoing it. There are a few cover artists on my reading list that I recommend.

The title is obviously unique, and it obviously relates to the story. Yay! I didn't find any other books titled this when I looked it up, so that's awesome. I like that it's in capitals.

The blurb is a good start. Obviously, I love how dramatic it is. Believe me, I use choppy and short sentences to create drama more than most. But, with that being said, your blurb is a little too choppy. I say this because there's no consistency to your blurb; there's no chunk that readers can latch onto. I recommend keeping the basic blurb style but changing it to make it a little more formed. This is what I've done with it:

Jihad is not who people think she is.

Behind her nervy eyes lie dark, shameful secrets and an even darker and more shameful past. The bunch of which, if leaked, will cost her everything and give life to her greatest fears.

But Jihad is lucky.

All she needs to do to put a lid on her past is to deny her present. At least, that's what she thinks. Until her burning need for approval places her at the doorstep of the devil himself.

Now, she must choose to either dine with the devil and become his right hand woman.

Or...

Call his bluff.

Either choice comes with a damning price tag.

I've also cleaned up some commas and put together sentences just to create more flow. I think this blurb is a little more professional and will attract readers better.

10/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

You've got some comma issues. That's okay, everybody does. I've said before I'm too scared of commas to really explain them in my reviews, but I've found a way to explain it in a way I think might help.

The first thing we need to go over is independent and dependent clauses. They are, unsurprisingly, exactly what they say they are:

An independent clause stands alone and can be used without reference to any other sentence.

A dependent clause relies on some other sentence to make sense. Usually, these dependent clauses are separated with a comma.

Let's take this sentence for starters, taken from your first chapter:

'...but isn't too dark for me to notice how my bedsheet, the colour of the grass on a football field creases around the area she's sat.'

So, the 'it's not to dark to notice how the bedsheet creases around the area she's sat' is the independent clause, and the 'the colour of the grass on a football field' is the dependant, because it can't stand alone. Because it's in the middle of an independent sentence, there needs to be a comma after 'creases'.